What Do the World's Women Want? A Talk with Francoise Girard

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Event Details

Date:
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
6:00 PM - 7:00 PM 
Location:
Societe Generale
245 Park Avenue
New York, NY
Event type
Lecture / Panel  

Event Transcripts and Video

Please join the Foreign Policy Association in welcoming Francoise Girard, President of the International Women's Health Coaltion. 

This year heads of state will finalize and adopt "Sustainable Development Goals," which will guide government investment in social, economic, and environmental programs for the next 15 years. As the global community reflects on what should be prioritized in these goals, Françoise Girard, President of the International Women's Health Coalition, will share the perspective put forward by more than 600 women's groups worldwide.

With the last set of UN development goals, those farthest from being achieved were those focused on the rights of women and girls. Yet without this investment, progress is in jeopardy.

Join us for a lively and enlightening discussion with Ms. Girard, who will discuss why the world needs to be focused on protecting and strengthening women's and girls' health and rights and the best ways to achieve this. She'll explore examples and stories from Nigeria, Pakistan, and other countries where advocates are boldly fighting for control over their bodies and futures.

Event Speakers

    • Francoise Girard
      President, International Women's Health Coalition


      Françoise Girard has been President of IWHC since February 2012. She is a longtime advocate and expert on women’s health, human rights, sexuality, and HIV and AIDS. Prior to that, Françoise was Director of the Public Health Program at Open Society Foundations (OSF), where she was also Regional Director for Central and Eastern Europe and Haiti in the 1990s. From 1999 to 2003, she was Senior Program Officer for International Policy at IWHC, and thereafter a consultant for IWHC, the International Planned Parenthood Federation, and DAWN, a network of women’s rights activists from the global South. She has played a key role in advocacy on reproductive health and women’s rights with UN agencies and at UN Conferences such as ICPD+5, Beijing+5, General Assembly Special Sessions on HIV/AIDS and on Children, ICPD+10, and the 2005 World Summit (Millennium Development Goals).

       


      Françoise currently serves on the Civil Society External Advisory Panel of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), and on the Advisory Committee of the Health and Human Rights Division of Human Rights Watch. She was the Chair of the Leadership Programme Committee of the 2010 International AIDS Conference, a 20,000+ participant biannual scientific conference.

       


      She has contributed many articles to peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Adolescent Health, Global Public Health, Science, Health and Human Rights, Global Health Policy, International Family Planning Perspectives and Reproductive Health Matters. Her other publications include “Negotiating sexual and reproductive health and rights at the UN: a long and winding road” in The Remaking of Social Contracts: Feminists in a Fierce New World, 2014; Global Implications of U.S. Domestic and International Policies on Sexuality, 2004; “Negotiating Sexual Rights and Sexual Orientation at the United Nations,” in SexPolitics: Report from the Front Lines, 2007; and “Advocacy for Sexuality and Women’s Rights: Continuities, Discontinuities and Strategies since ICPD” in Reproductive Health and Human Rights: The Way Forward, 2009. She has been quoted by BBC Radio, NPR, Washington Post, The Guardian, Boston Globe, Associated Press, CBC/Radio-Canada, Philadelphia Inquirer and The Nation, among others.

       


      Françoise holds an M.A. in Political Science from McGill University and an LL.B. from the Université de Montréal. She was a law clerk to Justice Charles Gonthier of the Supreme Court of Canada. She speaks French, Spanish, and Russian.

       

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